I don't know about a head swap. His arms and legs look like Prime's arm and leg design. It's not just his head. I'm getting him and not changing a thing.

 

But surely there have been truck toys in Japan before. Hell the original Trailbreaker toy was completely designed in Japan came in a couple colors,and was remolded into the design that became Hoist. There was also Gears and Kup. I'm sure there must be some other

 

Yeah, Takara were only on board if it could be a "Convoy" as it would negate it's less than popular alt-mode. In theory.

 

Pick up trucks are nearly non-existent in Japan... There are pretty much commercial trucks and sedans essentially... For some reason pick up trucks just never picked up there... SUV's exist, with Mitsubishi Pajero's and what not, but no trucks...

With the exception of SUV's, which in essence are very limited there, they seem to prefer smaller cars, which I would think would be due to congestion and parking and whatnot...

When I spent a week in Osaka, I literally saw no pick-up trucks at all... It's just a different culture...

 

There have, but that doesn't mean it'd be worth the investment for a second string character.

 

I noticed the Prime designs in the arms too and actually thought that was pretty neat. I'll buy the American one and call it Ginrai, to differentiate it from Anniversary Prime.

I've considered buying 2 Skids just to paint a red head and put it on the Ram for Ironhide, but I'm not good at painting and I'd have no use for the rest of the 2nd Skids' body.

 

Is it ever worth it for them to make toys other than Convoy and his relatives?

 

What's with that annoying obsession for Ironhide? Let Prime be something else than a semi!!!! I don't care AT ALL for wimpy Ironhide.

 

Well, if you take a G1 Trailbreaker and this guy and set them side by side in either mode.....Trailbreaker makes better sense. The transformation and robot characteristics are very similar. Chest swings down with the cab kibble in the back, big tall shoulders on top of the arms. Very similar shape....except for the fact that they put some reference to G1 Prime on the details of the arms and legs.....and the head, color. Blah, blah, blah.

 

You could've dropped that last sentence about Ironhide there and gotten the point of your preference across. This thread is flamy enough as is.

From my point of view, there is unfortunately a greater likelihood of this simply being a case of the toy being rescheduled to a point that Takara isn't currently certain of. The Tomy side has recently had to push back some of its upcoming products' release dates, indicating a possible difficulty redirecting the current combined resources since the merger.

Of course, I say unfortunately because I already have an Optimus Prime that is to scale with the other Alt/BT figs in both modes - Masterpiece OP. Shelling out money for a smaller, less impressive one is about as attractive as picking up a G2 Gobot Optimus Prime back in the day.

For that reason, I wouldn't mind if I was wrong about the corporate shuffle thing and Hasbro puts out the mold with a head swap for a different character.

 

For this reason, they may have foreseen a slight reluctance of the fan base in buying yet another Optimus, and hopefully chose another stronger selling character for the mold. I basically just said exactly what you said, but I am reinforcing that statement. You CAN have too much of a hero, and considering the T.H.S. 2 OP coming out around the same time as this was supposed to, they may have thought that it would compete too much with this release. Two Optimus' at the same time...overkill.

 

Buy the Monkey then.

Some of us LIKE Ironhide, but would like to see him as something other than a dopey minivan.

But I just realized I don't have a Trailbreaker in my G1 Homage team. So My vote is for big black TB!

(BTW if they're REALLY hard up for cash, they can do a Black Convoy and then just change the head with Swindle. Either way it's black.)

 

Well, if Tracks can go from being most definitely yellow to absolutely blue, then maybe, just maybe there's a chance that this won't wind up being Prime if Tomy-Takara does indeed cancel Ginrai and the black repaint, because if they decide to not release the figure for whatever reason, then there's nothing (as far as I can tell) keeping Hasbro from going back to their Plan A with this figure.

 

I weep tears of sorrow...

 

Indeed, totally unnecessary. I may not care for the BTs myself, but I respect that others do, and hence I don't slam it like that.

I think it'd be funny if the BT line did get canned and he was forced to collect that which he despises so much  

 

Yeah, they could just postpone Optimus like they did with Tracks, let the wave with Runamuck and Rollbar last a little longer by adding Prowl or Tracks back into the assortment to make it last longer and make changes on the Alt. Prime mold.

 

How bout they just paint him blue and call him Magnus.

It's going to happen anyway.

 

Well I say good riddance... that figure was fugly, not at all like prime. Ironhide maybe, but I think the Skid mould would make a better Ironhide.

 

WORD! WORD!